McDonald's (MCD) Beats the Street

Now that’s the kind of quarter investors own McDonald’s Corp (NYSE: MCD) for.

Earnings for the third quarter, reported before the market open on October 22, climbed to $1.15 a share from $1.05 in the third quarter of 2008. That was above Wall Street expectations of $1.11 a share. (This puts McDonald’s among the 80% of so of Standard & Poor’s 500 stocks that have beat Wall Street estimates so far this quarter. For more on that, see this October 20 post.)

Revenue fell 3.5% to $6.05 billion. That was below analyst projections of $6.1 billion. But on a constant currency basis, revenue was up 2% from the third quarter of 2008.

Same store sales increased by 3.8% overall and they were up in every region where McDonald’s does business. And by more than Wall Street had projected, according to Bloomberg. Same store sales grew by 2.5% in the United States (analysts had expected 2.2% growth), by 5.8% in Europe (5.4% expected), and by 2.2% in the Asia/Pacific, Middle East, and Africa regions (1.1% expected).

As of October 22, 2009, I’m keeping my target price at $72 a share but extending the schedule from March 2010 to September 2010. On October 22, the stock paid a dividend yield of 3.7%.

Full disclosure: Jim Jubak does not own or control shares of any company mentioned in this post.